The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1887-09-08
WOMANS OPPORTUNITY.
Discourse by Rev. DR.. Talmage at the
Hamptons.


God Made Man and Woman for Specific
Work and to Move In Particular Spheres
Woman Suffragists Unfit to Vote or to
Keep House.
THE HAMPToNs, Aug. 2S-"Woman's
Opportunity" was the subject of discourse
by the Rev. I. De Witt Talmage, D. D.,
to-day; and his text: $50 God created man
in His own image, the image of God created
He him; male and female created He them. ("
Genesis l, ~. Following is the sermon in
full:
In other words God, who can make ne
mistake, made man and woman for a spe-
clhc work and to move in particular spheres
man to be regnant in his realm, woman
to be dominant in hers. The boundary
line between Italy and Switzerland, be-
tween England and Scotland, is not more
thoroughly marked than this distinction
between the empire masculine and the
empire feminine. So entirely dissimilar
are the fields TO which God called them
that you can no more compare them than
you can oxygen and nitrogen, water and
grass, trees and stars. All this talk about
the superiority of one sex TO the other sex
is an everlasting waste of ink and speech.
A Jeweler may have n scale so delicate that
he. can weigh the dust of diamonds; but
where are the scales so delicate that YOU
can weigh in them affection against affec-
ton, sentiment against sentiment, thought
against thought, soul against soul, mans
world against woman's world? You come
out with your stereotyped remark, the man
is superior to woman in intellect, and then
| open on my desk the swarthy, iron -typed,
thunderbolted writings of Harriet Mar.
tineau, and Elizabeth Browning, and
George Eliot. You come on with YOUR
stereotyped remark about womans SUI
periority to man in the item of affection;
but / ask you where was there more ca
pacity to love than in John the disciple,
and Rober tMcCheyne, the Scotchman. and
John Summerfield the Methodist, and
Henry Martin the missionary? The heart
of those men was so large, that after YOU
had rolled into it two hemispheres there
was room still left to marshal the hosts Of
Heaven and set up the throne of the
eternal Jehovah. l deny to man the
throne intellectual. | deny to woman the
throne affeciional. No human phraseology
will ever'defne the spheres, while there is
an intuition by which we know when a
man is in his realm, and when woman is
in her realm, and when either of them is
out of it. No bungling Legislature ought
to attempt to make definition or to say:
This is the line and that is the line" My
theory IS that il woman wants 10 vote she
ought to vote, and that if man wants to
embroider and keep house he ought to be
allowed 10 embroider and keep house.
There are masculine women and there are
etfeminate men. My theory is that you
have no right to interfere with any ones
doing anything that is righteous. Albany
and Washington might as we'll decree by
legislation how high brown thrasher
should fly, or how deep trout should
plunge, as to try to seek out the hight or
the depth Of woman's duty. The ques-
ton of capacity will settle finally the whole
question, the whole subject. When a wo-
man is prepared to preach she will preach,
and neither conference nor presbytery can
hinder her. When woman i prepared
to move In highest commercial spheres she
Will have great influence on the exchange,
and no boards of trade can hinder her. 1
want woman to derstand that heart and
brain can overt. any barrier that politi-
clans my set up, ny that nothing can keep
her back or keep her down but the ques-
ton of incapacity.
sirable nature, who wander up and down
the country no homes of their own,
or forsaking ewn homes-talking
about their rights; anu know very we'll
that they themselves a., fit neither to vote,
nor fit to keep house. Their mission
seems to be to humiliate the two sexes at
the thought Of what any one OF us might
become. No one would want to live under
the laws that such women would enact, or
to have cast upon society the children that
such women would raise. But shall show
you this morning that the best rights that
woman can own, she already has in her
possession; that her position in this
country at this time is not one of COM
miseration, but one of congratulation; that
the grandeur and power Of her realm have
never yet been appreciated; that she sits
to-day on throne so high, that all the
thrones of earth piled on top of each other
would not make for her fOotstool. Here
is the platform on which she stands. Away
down below it are the ballot box and the
congressional assemblage and the legisla-
tive hall. Woman always has voted and
always will vote. Our great grandfathers
thought they were by their votes putting
Washington into the Presidential chair.
No. His mother, by the principles she
taught him, and by the habits she incul-
Gated, made him President. It was
Christian mothers hand dropping the
ballot when Lord Bacon wrote, and Newton
philosophical, and Alfred the Great gov
eIned, and Jonathan Edwards thundered of
Judgment to come. How many men there
have been in high political station, who
would have been insufficient to stand the
test to which their moral principle was put,
had it not been for wife's voice that eu-
couraGed them to do right, and wife's
prayer that sounded louder than the
clamor of partisanshipt Why, my friends,
the right of suffrage, as We men exercise
it, seems to be feeble thing. You,
Christian man. come up to the ballot-box
and drop your vote. Right after you comes
o libertine, or o sot-the offscouring of the
he drops his vote; and his vote
counteracts yours. But If in the quiet of
home life daughter by her Christian
demeanor, wife by her industry, another
by her faithfulness, casts vote in the
right direction, then nothing can resist it,
and the influence of that vote will throb
through the eternities.
My chief anxiety then is, not that wo-
man have other rights accorded her; but
that she, by the grace of God, rise up to
the appreciation of the glorious rights she
already possesses. This morning I shall
only have time to speak of one grand and
all absorbing right that every woman has,
and that is to make home happy. That
realm no one has ever disputed with her.
Men may come home at noon or at night,
and they tarry o comparatively little while;
but she, all day long, governs it, beauties
It, sanctifes it. 1t is within her power to
make 1t the most attractive place on earth.
1t is the only calm harbor in this world.
You know as we'll as do, that this outside
world and the business world is long
scene Of jostle and contention. The man
who has o dollar struggles to keep it; the
man who has it not struggles TO get it.
Prices up. Prices down. Losses. Gains.
Misrepresentation Gougings. Under
selling. Buyers depreciating; salesmen
exaggerating. Tenants seeking less rent;
landlords demanding more. Gold tidgety.